Gereon Meyer und Sven Beiker (stehend) und Teilnehmer der Podiumsdiskussion: Zach Lovering, Lutz Eckstein, Michael Bültmann, Jan Becker, Rene van den Hoevel (sitzend, von links)
On 10 July 2017, VDI/VDE-IT and the Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit) partnered with the German American Chamber of Commerce to hold their first joint event: the ‘German-US Future Mobility Night’. It was held at the German Consulate General in San Francisco, CA (USA).
The tagline for the event, which took place the evening before the Automated Vehicles Symposium (AVS), was ‘Transportation – On the Road and Taking Off’. It was attended by leading experts, who discussed the current state of technology, future prospects and the economic importance of automated vehicles, especially of pilotless taxi drones. Participants included former US Secretary of Transportation Rodney E Slater, Zach Lovering (A3 – Airbus), Michael Bültmann (HERE), Prof Lutz Eckstein (RWTH Aachen) and Dr Jan Becker (Stanford). There were also numerous representatives from German companies in Silicon Valley and AVS delegates from Germany, Europe and the USA.
There was an overall consensus that transatlantic collaboration in the field of automation requires further consolidation. They agreed improvements could be made to the sharing of information, data and experience and to networking.
The idea for the event came from Dr Gereon Meyer (VDI/VDE-IT) and Dr Sven Beiker (Stanford University), who chaired the evening. Together, they also publish the proceedings of the AVS. The latest volume, ‘Road Vehicle Automation 4’ was presented to the public for the first time at the event.